


Birdie and the Buffalo Soldier

by dsa_archivist



Category: due South
Genre: Drama, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-01-02
Updated: 2001-01-02
Packaged: 2018-11-10 19:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11133036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsa_archivist/pseuds/dsa_archivist
Summary: Ray Vecchio wakes up to stranger world than usual...





	Birdie and the Buffalo Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Speranza, the archivist: this story was once archived at [Due South Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Due_South_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Due South Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/duesoutharchive).

 

 

Untitled

**Rating** : PG-13, I suppose,  
for violence  
 **Pairing** : none  
 **Spoilers** : none, unless I missed one.  
 **Note1** : Very strange things fall out of  
my brain sometimes.  This is one of those times.  
 **Note2** : "carabao" is a water buffalo in  
the Philippines.  No, I didn't know that when I started this fic,  
nor is it particularly relevant.  
 **Warnings** : Deathfic (yeah, it seriously  
weirded me out, too)  
 **Disclaimers** :  The usual - unowned  
but not unloved, yadda, yadda, yadda.  If they get dirty or overheated,  
I'll hose 'em off before I put 'em up.  Anything more than a friendly  
handshake is at your own risk, folks, just like real life.  
 **Feedback** : yes, please.  Comments to

*********************** 

Birdie and the Buffalo Soldier   
MHH 

Ray Vecchio muttered something under his breath and stretched on the sweet dry grass, content.  Asleep.  The first really sound sleep he'd been able to enjoy in what seemed like centuries; he dozed under a bright summer sun, wrapped in the profound silence of a world at peace. 

Except for the whisper of the zephyr through the seedheads, that is.  Ray pressed one ear to the ground and sighed.  White noise, he thought fuzzily.  Nothing but the soft summer breeze rattling a few grass stalks. 

And the fretful call of mother birds to their exuberant young. 

And confused diurnal crickets. 

And the buzz of diligent insects. 

Ray had almost convinced himself to ignore these small breaches of the peace when a little light-footed SOMETHING settled with a quiet whirr on his right shoulder.  Yelping, he rolled to his feet and pawed fruitlessly for his gun. 

Awake as adrenaline surged through his sleep-fogged system, it took a moment for Ray to realize he had no gun.  In fact, he had no clothes.  The world looked a little skewed, too, but that might just be his somnolent eyes.  He was just beginning to wonder why he'd been napping nude in a field full of crickets when a ragged bundle of white feathers landed a few feet from his newly-wakened nose. 

The dustmop shook itself and resolved into a marginally tidier white bird, slim and quick.  Ray was surprised at its nonchalant proximity; he'd never been good with animals, nor one to draw their confidence.  He was almost grateful for the company in this puzzling situation.  Then the bird spoke.  "Geez, Vecchio, nice to see you, too.  C'mon, c'mon, we gotta go see Fraser.  I've been flying recon all morning looking for your sorry butt.  Get a wiggle on, willya?  He won't wait, you know.  He'll just go charging off and then we'll have to find him, which is a whole lot harder than finding you.  He won't wait.  He never waits." 

The bird subsided into incoherent mutterings and an impatient shuffle dance.  Ray sighed.  Fraser.  Every weird thing that ever happened to him could be put on Fraser's account.  Why should this be any different?  Talking birds and sleeping in his birthday suit in a meadow probably did maximize the bizarre, even for Fraser-class eccentricity.  Resigned to his place as the permanent punchline to some cosmic joke, Ray sighed again, flicked at a persistent fly with his tail and prepared to follow the birdie. 

Flicked a fly.  With his tail.  Fly.  Tail.  Ray whipped around, trying to figure out where he'd gotten a tail and the ability to use same.  He didn't seem to bend that far.  Whirling until he was dizzy, he changed approaches and stopped.  Breathless, he waited for the earth to quit lurching under his feet.  His FOUR feet, he noted somewhat hysterically.  He closed his eyes and thought about moving the tail he knew he didn't really have.  Nothing.  Ray wasn't sure whether the lack of response was good or bad, but he felt a certain amount of relief all the same.  Concentrating on his rump, he barely noticed the bug on his ear or how one lazy flap of that appendage evicted the pest.  The motion of a fringed earlap caught his peripheral vision and set off another frantic tarantella.  Eyes rolling wildly, Ray finally had to admit that whatever lurked just beyond his sight was somehow attached to him, even if trying to get a good look at it was like trying to track a floater on his eyeball. 

The bird took all these gyrations in stride.  "C'mon, Vecchio, pitter-patter." 

"Stanley?!?" 

"Don't CALL me that.  I hate that.  Nobody's called me 'Stanley' since I left the nest." 

"You're a bird." 

"And you're a water buffalo.  So?  You mean something by that?" 

"I'm a what?" 

"A water buffalo.  Big flappy ears, grey hide, split feet, and a tendency to lick the inside of your nose.  Digusting habit, by the way.  Really grosses me out."  A practiced hop and snap signaled the demise of some winged insect. 

"You eat bugs!" 

"Yeah?  At least I don't stick my tongue places tongues shouldn't go."  With an impossible contortion, Raybird wiped his yellow beak on his rump and preened his flight feathers with the collected oil.  "Will you shake your tailfea ... uh, rump already?" 

He felt like arguing, just to be contrary, but it wasn't like he had any other plans for the day.  He hadn't even planned on being a water buffalo, but apparently his was the last opinion consulted in these matters.  Head down, he plodded in the direction his birdbrained companion indicated, and held fast to the thought that he was going to see Benny.  See him, and kill him. 

The long footslog offered an unparalleled opportunity to reflect and contemplate.  Ray amused himself with thoughts of bloody revenge, images of trampled serge settled comfortably in his bones.  Kowalski alternated between frenetic leaping and flapping after the bugs Ray stirred up in passing and querulously perching on Ray's right horn. 

The images of rumpled Stetsons gradually lost their allure, replaced with scenes of bloodied birds.  Only gradually did the content of Kowalski's monologue register on Ray's tired and distracted brain.  They were headed into a firefight, to join Fraser in his usual headlong dash to disaster.  The opposition, aka forces of evil, were well-prepared and dangerous, as f.o.e. tend to be.  Their chances of success hovered uncertainly between "none" and "negative none".  Ray lumbered to a vexed halt. 

"We're headed toward certain death, is that right?  Why?  What's the point?" 

The egret replied, "The point is that Fraser's our friend, and we stand by our friends, doofus." 

"That's it?  'This is Fraser, so just shut up and die already'?  Where is that written?" 

"Look, Vecchio, it's not like we haven't been through this before.  Fraser.  Certain death.  You moan and I freak and somehow it all comes right in the end.  You'll see.  Just remember to cut me some slack when we get closer up and I lose it, okay?" 

Ray thought about it for awhile, shifting a little on sore hooves.  They were going to Fraser because Fraser needed them.  Right.  Good.  That made sense.  Danger or no, Benny needed him and he would go.  Stupid or not, it was the right thing to do.  He couldn't help thinking a little wistfully about the advantages of grenades and assault rifles, despite his current lack of opposable thumbs.  If all he could offer was himself, uncomfortably clad in hooves, horns, and tail, then that's what he'd bring to the table, ante up, and put on the line for his friend.. 

"Okay.  Lead on, McFeathers." 

A short way on, the earth turned blackened and scorched, although the soil itself was cool and dry.  Carcasses, antelope and zebra, kudu and okapi, littered the ground.  The egret flew short search patterns, circling an increasingly anxious water buffalo. 

When Kowalski gave an excited cackle and shot off, Ray broke into an uncomfortable amble.  Muttering threats against avian life, all avian life, he organized his limbs into a stiff canter.  Topping a rise, head lowered for more push, he smacked forehead-first into something yellow. 

Ray skidded to an awkward halt, wondering yet again why he'd been saddled with a bulky and graceless form, and stared at the lion he'd accidentally upended.  A very large lion, not as large as Aslan in the Narnia stories, but still a very substantial lion.  The animal rolled partway down the incline, bowling into and over various other veldt wildlife as it tumbled end over end.  Something in its size and cumbersome recovery reminded him of Turnbull.  The stammered apologies clinched it. 

"Hello, Ray." 

Another lion, not so large as Turnbull, but with more presence.  Charisma.  Serene and powerful where Turnbull dithered. 

"Benny", Ray acknowledged.  "I like the hat.  Never go anywhere without that Stetson, do you?" 

Fraser shrugged one eyebrow and surveyed the horizon, eloquent in silence.  "It's good to see you, Ray." 

"Good to see you, too.  What brings you here?" 

"I first came to the savanna on the trail of my father's killer.  You know that, Ray.  Are you unwell?" 

"You could say that, Benny."  Ray laughed, a resonant basso profundo wheeze.  "I'm not myself today." 

"Ah." 

"So fill me in.  Pretend I haven't heard any of it before, and start at the beginning." 

Fraser's eyes narrowed, in irritation or thought.  "The full exposition would take hours.  The shorter version, leaving out the most tangential and least relevant historical background, still takes an hour or more to impart.  Very, very briefly, condensing our situation into the most succinct telling possible, the villains are there, we are here, and those we protect are moving as rapidly as practical towards safety over there." 

"We're all that stands between the bad guys and the public?  That sound familiar."  Ray stretched and looked around at his fellow defenders.  "There's more of us than just the dozen or so of us here, right?  Please tell me there are reinforcements in reserve somewhere out of sight?" 

"No.  Just us." 

"Figures.  How many baddies?" 

"At least fifty, perhaps more." 

"Sucky odds", Ray muttered.  "Okay.  What do you need me to do?" 

Fraser grinned with a mouth full of very pointy white teeth.  "Be yourself.  Do whatever you see needs doing.  Hold on as long as possible.  The longer we can hold them here, the more innocents we save.  Oh, and please stop knocking Turnbull over.  He IS on our side, after all." 

"Evidence otherwise notwithstanding", piped the egret, an animate plume nodding incongruously atop the Stetson.  Ray looked at the young lion, who'd regained his position on the height.  Saw him tremble but overcome his fear long enough to speak soothingly to the white-eyed zebra beside him. 

They settled down to wait.  Fraser has been right, there wasn't time enough for even the condensed version of the tale.  Ray felt the ground vibrate, saw dust rise in a choking cloud, watched the massed opposition grow larger and much more threatening.  No mere fifty, they numbered closer to three times that.  All big bruisers, not a meerkat or egret among them. 

Ray took one last deep breath.  "This is it, huh?" 

"I'm afraid so." 

"That's good.  That's great.  I can do this.  Greatness.  See ya on the other side, wherever that turns out to be."  With a scream that sounded more like a laugh than anything Ray had been able to rumble, the lightweight bird launched himself into the air.  Fierce and fearless, he careened through the sky like a demented shuttlecock, drawing every eye.  Two pounds or less of feathered defiance.  The opposition had nothing light enough to touch him.  To crush him, they'd have to catch him first. 

Ray grinned.  He'd be easier to catch, but harder to bring down.  Three-to-one wasn't great odds, and he'd probably have to bring down Stanley's three as well, but he could do it.  He had to, and he'd always been good at doing whatever was necessary.  Shoulder to shoulder with Fraser and a kudu with beautiful five-foot long spiral horns, he waited for his destiny. 

Fraser had chosen well.  A dozen determined creatures could hold the ground against a somewhat larger force.  Against overwhelming numbers, a dozen peaceful, cornered creatures lasted exactly fifty-eight minutes and change. 

White feathers smashed, ground into soil and gore, lost. 

Long spiral horns spiked through flesh, alone. 

Bloodied zebra stripes stretched beneath tawny fur, unmoving. 

Meerkats entwined, broken. 

A Stetson, and its owner, shredded. 

Grey hide streaked with sluggish rust. 

Ray gasped and sat up.  Groped for the lamp on the nightstand, and was more than a little surprised by the sight of his own long fingers on the switch.  Human fingers, not buffalo hooves.  Thought about waking somebody for a talk, but decided that he'd let his partner sleep.  A dream that strange would keep until daylight. 

That was the LAST time he'd let Kowalski order the pizza on a night that Turnbull picked the movies.   
  

 Return to Archive   
  


End file.
